Active Directory for Windows?

We are looking into setting up an active directory login system here at my work and was wondering if anybody has any experience in this? We have around 40 PC's and I think it would greatly help reduce the amount of time I have to go around and spend fixing messed up PC's and help limit who can actually use them. If anybody has any good books for me to read please let me know!

I'm an admin in an extremely large active directory. I was only allowed 5 OU's at first, with a 6th added recently. Aside from the usual "Microsoft sucks", AD is pretty good. Things stay nice and tidy, many other products will integrate with AD smoothly also. If you host your own mail, you can integrate Exchange2003 with Active Directory, too.

You should really do a LOT of research before setting anything up, and plan it out well. Once you flip the switch, it's hard to undo without screwing things up left and right (think file permissions on your important accounting documents, among other interesting problems).

The effect it has on your time spent on maintenance depends on the problems you're usually bogged down with. If you find yourself often bogged down with permission problems or user account problems, it will probably help somewhat. But AD will probably have little effect on you going around and cleaning out spyware, unless you make really careful good use of Group Policy and have all your machines on a consistent operating system (windows XP).
I got O'Reilly's "Understanding Active Directory" a few years ago and "Scripting Windows 2000". Both were very helpful, but I'm sure by now with Server2003 being out for a while, there's better info available.

The best advice I can give is the most common advice you'll find while researching this; Plan and organize your Active Directory structure well!

Useful Searches

>
About Us>
>
In May of 1999 CK5 started out as a tribute to America's favorite 4x4 utility truck. Since then it has grown to be
a leader among full size Chevrolet K5 Blazer and GMC Jimmy web sites across the Internet. CK5 has since expanded
to include the C/K series GM Truck and Suburban as well as past and present GM models.
>>
With its technical articles, factory specifications, photo gallery, classifieds, active message forum, product
reviews and original automotive content it's an unbeatable source.